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Miss Universe Visits Guantánamo Bay

By Robert Mackey March 30, 2009 3:32 pmMarch 30, 2009 3:32 pm

Updated | March 31 Don’t ask us how or why we came across this — and the British home secretary’s husband did not bring it to our attention — but the latest entry on the blog of the reigning Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza, has a sort of eye-catching dateline: “March 27, 2009, Guantánamo Bay.”

According to the Web site of the U.S.O., which arranged the visit, the Miss Universe Organization made the decision to “deploy Crystle Stewart, Miss U.S.A. 2008, and Dayana Mendoza, Miss Universe 2008, to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to visit troops as part of a U.S.O./Armed Forces Entertainment tour.”

We arrived in Gitmo on Friday and stared going around the town, everybody knew Crystle and I were coming so the first thing we did was attend a big lunch and then we visited one of the bars they have in the base. We talked about Gitmo and what is was like living there. The next days we had a wonderful time, this truly was a memorable trip! We hung out with the guys from the East Coast and they showed us the boat inside and out, how they work and what they do, we took a ride around the land and it was a loooot of fun!

We also met the Military dogs, and they did a very nice demonstration of their skills. All the guys from the Army were amazing with us.

We visited the Detainees camps and we saw the jails, where they shower, how the recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books. It was very interesting.

We took a ride with the Marines around the land to see the division of Gitmo and Cuba while they were informed us with a little bit of history.

The water in Guantánamo Bay is soooo beautiful! It was unbelievable, we were able to enjoy it for at least an hour. We went to the glass beach, and realized the name of it comes from the little pieces of broken glass from hundred of years ago. It is pretty to see all the colors shining with the sun. That day we met a beautiful lady named Rebeca who does wonders with the glasses from the beach. She creates jewelry with it and of course I bought a necklace from her that will remind me of Guantánamo Bay :)

I didn’t want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful.

Mr. Chavez, who is close to the Cuban leadership, may now be rethinking the praise he heaped on Ms. Mendoza on Venezuelan television last year, when she returned to Caracas with the crown:

Update: The Miss Universe Organization, which we had been unable to reach for comment on Monday, sent us a written statement (.pdf) on Ms. Mendoza’s visit, and blog post, late on Tuesday afternoon. The statement, which notes that Miss Universe is “An NBC Universal, Inc. and Donald J. Trump Partnership,” is from Paula Shugart, the organization’s president. It reads, in part:

Dayana Mendoza’s comments on her blog were in reference to the hospitality she received while meeting the members of the U.S. military and their families who are stationed in Guantánamo.

The Miss Universe Organization echoes the mission of the USO, which is to lift the spirits of U.S. troops and their families wherever they serve. We will continue to show our appreciation and express our gratitude to the military personnel who serve our nation.

Sad. Really. Does this woman have any handlers? Who could have thought this was a good idea for her to go there and give such a glowing report? It is all downhill from here. Nothing I have read suggests the place is a paradise as she suggests. This feeds into the stereotype of pretty airheads.

Ought to send these beauty contest winners to Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Maybe killing fields in Cambodia as well. They’re sure to have a swell time bs’ing with local security, seeing the sights, swooning over the natural beauty. Think of the swell souvenirs they can bring home after a day of soooo much fun. In fact, they might not want to leave.

Deleted from her blog: “They wanted to ‘waterboard’ me but I said only if you use Evian! I need mineral water for my hair and skin! LOL! Then the prisoners did a performance for us! They stripped nude and made a pyramid. …”

I seriously doubt whether they consulted President Obama on this.. This could become a PR disaster. Hope they left the detainees alone. Although Gitmo was not Abu-Gharib from the extreme prisoner-humiliation point of view.. but it still is a bag of bad history given the human rights abuses. Why connect an infamous place with glamor women, while we are trying to get the country back from the financial precipice ?

This is another arguement for pulling out and giving the place back to Cuba. First water boarding then Miss Universe. Do you realize there are more political prisoners in Guantanamo then there has ever been in the rest of Cuba? And since the revoluion, the only insances of torture on the Island have been there?

Her blog as reported seems to indicate that she visited the town of Guantanamo (immortalized in the famous song Guantanamera) and not the US military base which is separated from the town and its environs by a stout and secure perimeter.

She certainly didn’t buy jewelry from a local woman at the military base, nor was she able to catch a boat at the base to take her ‘around the island’ (of Cuba? what other island could it have been?).

So I wouldn’t jump to conclusions based on what is probably an incorrect and misleading report. I think the Times needs to issue a correction on this one.
[P, As stated in the blog post above, Ms. Mendoza was sent to “visit troops as part of a USO/Armed Forces Entertainment.” U.S. troops are unlikely to be found anywhere else on the island of Cuba except at the U.S. the military base. The USO press release linked to from the post also says that Ms. Mendoza was going there to “talk with military families, dine with troops and pose for photos.” — RM. Lede Blog]

This is just hard to comprehend. I’m having trouble believing that this woman could be so clueless as to not even mention the recent significance of the location she was visiting within here statement. Simply astonishing. She is doing an enormous disservice to all those who look up to her. She should be serving as a role model who is allowed to appreciate the apparant beatuy in a landscape but to not overlook the extremely important human rights issues which deserve our utmost attention.

She’s a very smart Venezuelan woman; she is fluent in 4 languages. Also remember she is only 22 years old and she is a beauty queen and not the president of a nation.

I respect her capacity of appreciates the beauty of the island. MU is a job like any other job but not a political one. I feel very sorry for the people who think MU should comments about the political and historical situation of Guantanamo bay. I don’t think that makes her an airhead.

“We visited the Detainees camps and we saw the jails, where they shower, how the recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books.”

Of course! I’m sure after their daily hot, lathered showers prisoners can check out volumes like “Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power” by Joseph Margulies and movies like “Rendition” starring Reese Witherspoon! I’m sure complimentary popcorn is provided, too!

Aha the fools of the left make themselves look so ridiculous. Hey the troops at Gitmo are not mistreating those SOBs . Yes we might as well close it down and send them all to Spain. The left doesn’t have a clue about people who want to destory the west.

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